


Wings Are Made To Fly

by EllaStorm



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: Alexander VI survives 1503, Brother/Sister Incest, Cesare goes on conquering, F/M, Fix History, Fix-It, Lucrezia in Ferrara, Or More Like, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, also, altered history, this is how it might have gone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14704305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaStorm/pseuds/EllaStorm
Summary: Alexander VI. doesn't die in 1503 and the Borgia-empire grows under Cesare's rule. Lucrezia is married in Ferrara - one of the last cities still standing in the Romagna, that her brother, soon enough, sets his eyes upon.





	Wings Are Made To Fly

**Author's Note:**

> I took two major historical liberties with this:  
> 1) Rodrigo survives his actual historical death date of August 18th 1503 and keeps being Pope for an undefined period of time.  
> 2) Alfonso is already Duke of Ferrara in 1503 (when he actually only succeeded his father Ercole in 1505).  
> Both of these things were necessary to make this story work.
> 
> The idea for this sprang into my mind when I was reading "The Prince" just recently. In one chapter Machiavelli waxes on about how Cesare did everything right in his conquering and he could have totally made that reuniting-Italy-thing work, because he was a strategic genius and people apparently really loved him as a regent (suck on that, Alexandre Dumas!); if only his Dad had lived a teeny, tiny bit longer and Cesare himself hadn't gotten sick with malaria. I kind of played the scenario out in my head in the setting of "The Borgias" and...this is what happened, basically. Have fun.

**\- October 1503 -**

 

Her steps echoed harshly on the stone floor when she entered her husband’s rooms. Alfonso was sitting at his desk, scribbling something down with grim determination in his blue eyes, but his gaze lifted the moment he heard her by the door, and a tentative smile spread on his lips.

“My Lady,” he said, and the rest of the sentence was left hanging in the air between them.

“My Lord. We should speak.”

She closed the doors and walked over to where her husband was sitting. He was a handsome man; and she’d liked him the moment she’d laid eyes on him almost two years ago, had liked his strength and his poise, because they reminded her of her brother, had liked his sparkling blue eyes, because they were nothing like Cesare’s at all. Liking him had never been a chore for her. Loving him on the other hand… Unlike her 14-year-old self this Lucrezia was very glad that love wasn’t a requirement for marriage. Her poet, Pietro Bembo, might have sweetly assured her that she would one day feel otherwise, but love had become unreachable to her. She would never love like _that_ again; and anything else was too little.

“You came to talk about your brother, did you not?”

“I did,” Lucrezia said and stepped closer to Alfonso, put her hands on his shoulders and let them rest there. “We need to consider our possibilities. If my father had died of his illness this summer my brother’s position would have been dangerous enough to retain him from further conquests, but now it is more than sufficiently affirmed; and his ambitions, as you have surely heard, are great.”

“He is a genius,” Alfonso gave back, not without bitterness. “If I had half the strategic mind that he has…” He turned halfway to look at her. “You do believe he wants Ferrara? Despite our alliance in marriage? You do believe the Pope would allow it?”

Lucrezia sighed. “It doesn’t matter what my father wants or doesn’t want. It doesn’t matter what alliances have been made. Cesare wants Italy, all of it, and he wants Ferrara next.”

_Ferrara, and me._

Alfonso closed his eyes as if she had finally said what he had long feared. “So what are the options, my Lady?”

“My brother does not hurt what I love. And I love Ferrara. He would never pillage and plunder this city. This is my home now. These are my people.”

“Do you think he can be deterred from Ferrara?”

Lucrezia sighed again. “No. I don’t think so. He will find a way to take this city without doing too much damage. But I know my brother. He will take it. By violence, if necessary. And how the House of d’Este fares depends entirely on how well you play your diplomatic cards.”

“Am I to understand that you would have me relinquish Ferrara to your brother?” Alfonso asked, incredulously.

“No, my Lord. I would have you make a deal with him.” Her hands gripped Alfonso’s shoulders tighter. “With the necessary aptitude, you will stay Lord of Ferrara; and nobody will get hurt.”

Alfonso’s hand took hers, stroking her knuckles. “And you will be by my side, Lucrezia? Through this?” She didn’t find herself capable of saying _yes,_ squeezed his fingers instead and pressed a kiss into his hair.

“I do not have an heir,” Alfonso whispered, and the words hit Lucrezia like ice water to her face. She remembered the small bundle she had delivered to this world only a year ago, remembered the sad shaking of heads from doctors and midwives, remembered her own pain.

“I’m sorry,” Lucrezia said.

“Don’t be,” her husband answered. His voice was gentle.

For a few minutes there was only silence.

“You still love him, don’t you? Your brother?”

Lucrezia swallowed hard. _I yearn for him sometimes at night when I lie with you. I imagine his hair under my fingers and his eyes on mine and his reverent hands, and I remember being loved like no woman has been loved before me._

“He is my brother,” she answered. “I still love him.”

 

  

 

**\- November 1503 -**

 

She saw his armies from the battlements of her castle, red waves on the leaf-covered grounds in a safe, unthreatening distance from Ferrara. They were too many, far too many men for a small castle like this – though fortified with moats and archers – to resist for long, and she could see the cannon Cesare brought, not French ones, she’d heard, but his own, made in the foundries of Rome and Forlì and every other city he had thus far conquered. A strange, inappropriate feeling of pride took hold of her for a moment. _This blood runs through my veins,_ she thought, before she left the battlements and went down to her freshly saddled horse.

The city gates opened with a scraping noise, and she rode, rode towards the rows of tents in the distance that had already been erected on the grounds. The person to intercept her just before she reached them was one she knew.

“Micheletto,” she said, surprised. The last news she had of him were that he’d left, but those were news from almost two years ago – from the last time she had seen her brother in Rome, after her husband had died. She still felt the blood sticking to her face, and the deep guilt of Alfonso’s death, but beside that, she also still felt the heat of Cesare’s body, the softness of his hands as he cleaned her skin, and the measureless love seeping right down to her bone marrow when he breathed her name into her hair.

“My Lady,” Micheletto gave back and bowed. He hardly looked different than two years ago, maybe three, four more scars on his hands and face, but otherwise, nothing had changed about him.

Lucrezia wondered if her brother was still the same, too.

She let Micheletto help her down from her horse and guide her to the largest tent without another word spoken; and for a second, amidst the billowing red, she wouldn’t have been surprised at all, if a Roman centurion had rounded the corner, or if she’d found her brother with golden laurels in his hair.

The flap of the tent was held open for her, and Lucrezia entered. Her eyes instantly fell on the only occupant, a man in black leather, brooding over a map.

“Brother,” she said, seriously; and he turned around. Apart from the length of his hair that was being held in a bun at his neck now, so as not to obscure his view, and a few more muscles on his slender form, he did not look different at all. His eyes lit up with unconcealed happiness when he saw her, and she couldn’t help but smile in return. Suddenly she was child again, running with him through the gardens in their mother’s house, as he lifted her up and whirled her through the air in a thoughtless burst of euphoria.

She was still laughing, when he set her down again and pulled her close; and she took a few moments to breathe his scent, let her chest fill up with this pure, soaring feeling that always overtook her when he was near, like the Holy Spirit itself had come down from Heaven to drench her insides with light. _How can God hate me for this?_

Too soon they had to let go, sit down opposite each other, fall back into the roles of two diplomats negotiating, but Cesare’s eyes never really left her, and in all her time in Ferrara she had never felt as safe and sound as she did now.

“You wrote me a letter,” Cesare began. “You said you wanted to negotiate peace for Ferrara.”

“I do. It’s my home. More than Rome was, in the end.”

Her brother nodded, but she could see a sliver of hurt in his eyes. _You are my home above anywhere on earth,_ she wanted to say, but didn’t. This was not about them.

“I know you want Ferrara. It’s a necessity for your goal. Re-uniting Italy under Borgia rule. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what our father wants? No, you don’t have to answer me, Cesare. I know what’s next. Naples, Venice, Bologna, Milan. You’re carving out an empire for yourself, for our family, just like Caesar, like Alexander the Great. Or was it Alexander the Sixth? I cannot blame you. If I were you, I might do just the same.” She breathed deeply for a few seconds, collecting herself, while Cesare kept looking at her. “But I am the Lady of Ferrara now, rightfully married to the Duke of Ferrara, and I love this city and the people in it. If you do not want to hurt me, do not hurt Ferrara. Do not hurt my husband.”

“Do you love him?” Cesare asked, and _of course_ that would be his question.

Lucrezia clenched her jaw. “I like him. Which is better than loving him, I suppose. Surely better for him. People I love tend to get hurt. And-“

Her brother’s hand found hers on the table, his thumb stroking over her fingers, and Lucrezia paused. _Maybe this is about us, after all._ “And all my love has been used up, anyway,” she ended, a shiver in her voice.

Her eyes found Cesare’s, and the bitterness in his gaze subsided slowly as she kept looking at him. She couldn’t tell him, didn’t know how to phrase it, that he was all she would ever love, that her love was unshared and his, his, his. It scared her sometimes, the knowledge that nothing could change that. Not two years, not marriage, not war. Even if he’d take Ferrara, burn it to the ground, kill her husband and her people, she would still love him. Hate herself for it, yes. Hate him for it, even more. But she’d still love him.

“I will not hurt Ferrara, my love,” Cesare said, softly, and Lucrezia knew that somehow he had understood what she had been unable to put into words. “There is nothing I want to do less than take your happiness away. But something has to be done. Ferrara is a bastion that could cause serious trouble for me in the future, if the D’Este decide to rise up against me. The alliance through your marriage makes that less likely, but you see what happened with your first husband. He betrayed us in our hour of greatest need. I will not make the same mistake my father made and rely on the support of someone who is tied to us only by marriage. And who doesn’t, yet, have an heir.” Cesare cocked his head to the side, all calculating strategist, and of course Lucrezia understood, of course she knew. She’d always been able to see through her brother’s eyes. And were _she_ the man, were _she_ in his place – she would make no other decision.

“You would make Ferrara dependant on you. Have it be part of your empire by assuring the city stays loyal to the Borgia banner. Can it remain under D’Este rule?” Lucrezia asked.

“No,” Cesare retorted, and she knew that was his final answer. Her heart sank when she remembered what she had so optimistically told Alfonso only a month ago: _With the necessary aptitude you will stay Lord of Ferrara._ He wouldn’t. Cesare was too careful. There was nothing she could do about it.

“So what about my husband?”

“The Duke will be sent to permanent exile. He will have his money, and he will be looked after, I will make sure of that. He will not be hurt. And then, after that, Ferrara will have a Duchess, and only a Duchess. A Duchess loyal to the Borgia name, because she carries the Borgia name. A Duchess truly loved and recognised by her people, as far as I have heard.” Cesare smiled at her, and Lucrezia blinked back at him in complete astonishment. What he was willing to give her was nothing short of princely. Banishing the d’Este and installing Lucrezia as Duchess would set her free from her father’s ambitions once and for all, allow her to reign on her own, to take another husband of her own choosing, or not to take one at all, legitimise Giovanni as her heir, if she wanted. Nobody would ever again tell her what to do. And Cesare – Cesare would always stand beside her, with an army, if necessary, defend her against her enemies from within and without, protect her in this very empire of his. He could be back in her arms, whenever she wanted…

“Would that make you happy, sis?” he asked, and without thought, she nodded.

Cesare’s hand squeezed her fingers and the smile that spilled over his lips almost made her forget what precarious situation she was in.

“Alfonso will never accept this,” she finally pointed out when she regained her hold on reality, catching herself already considering how she might be able to go about this. _Two words of my brother and I am ready to commit treason._

Cesare rose from his chair. “He will have to accept it. The alternative is battle. He doesn’t want that. If he wanted it he would have attacked long ago and not sent you out here to negotiate.”

Lucrezia stood up as well, facing her brother. “He will never give this city up by his own free will. He is a proud man, Cesare. In his eyes you are an usurper, and I, if I’m to support you behind his back, am a traitorous snake. Which, to be honest, right now I’d agree on.”

To her surprise, Cesare only smiled, softly. He pulled her in, by her waist, until their mouths were only inches apart, and she could feel his warm breath on her lips, soothing her. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll find a way. If you want your happiness in Ferrara, you will have Ferrara. And if you want Ferrara without me forcibly taking it, you will have it that way, too.”

Lucrezia’s heart was beating fast, her brother’s presence surrounding her, and she could feel it like she’d never felt it before: His need, his hunger for power, taking root in herself, pumping adrenaline through her veins. Cesare was right. If they were like this, running towards a joint destination, nothing would stop them.

“There remains one option,” Lucrezia said, quietly. “Apart from violence. Deception.”  
She looked Cesare in the eye, his molten darkness meeting her steel blue, and covered his mouth with hers. Their kiss lasted for a few blissful seconds, then Lucrezia let go, despite herself, let her brother chase her lips for a moment, before he realised she was about to say something.

“We need official documents.”

The way Cesare looked at her right then was rivalled in adoration only by the look a believer might give to the saviour himself.

 

 ***

 

“You did it,” Alfonso said, once again, lacing his fingers with hers, relief in his eyes. “You really convinced him.” He lifted the document she had brought back to him, a gracious assurance of his rightful reign over the fair city of Ferrara with the blessing of Il Valentino himself, in exchange for an alibi amount of gold and free passage for Cesare’s armies.

Lucrezia nodded and kissed her husband’s fingertips. “I’m good at getting from him what I want. We were right to face him peacefully.” She searched his eyes, a real spike of worry in her gut. “You won’t try to deceive him, will you? There are not twenty armed men just waiting to put arrows in my brother as soon as he enters here tomorrow?”

Alfonso took her face in his hands and looked her earnestly in the eye. “Deceive him? For what, stabilising my position? Certainly not. He will always be welcome in Ferrara. Thanks to you, my saving grace. My beloved Lady Lucrezia.”

He gave her an overjoyed kiss and his hands wandered over her back, pulling her in further. Lucrezia let it happen, revelled in the memory of Cesare doing just that only hours ago.

They’d both been high on what they were going to do, and Lucrezia had never pictured it to be like _this,_ but had truly understood, for the first time, why her brother did what he did, her own ambitions driving her in his direction, at last. When they’d been done drafting documents and planning soldiers’ assignments, they had sat for a few moments, looking at each other, a familiar need arising between them like fog from the ground, strong as it had ever been. They had loved each other right there, on the table in Cesare’s tent, cleared of maps by a strong sweep of his hand, the lines of his hips hard against Lucrezia’s thighs, his hands impossibly soft at her face, his eyes regarding her with awe as he moved inside her. She’d pushed him deeper, had pulled the leather tie out of his hair and buried her hands there, lightly mocking him for how long it had gotten, and Cesare had answered her with a long, lingering kiss… There, in his arms, everything had made sense to her, like puzzle pieces falling into place. Lucrezia needed peace and freedom, but she loved Cesare more than her life; and Cesare wanted to possess, breathed war like air, but he loved Lucrezia more than his life – and it had never occurred to them that they might both have the opportunity to get what they needed and who they loved at the same time. Every semblance of remorse for her husband’s fate had left Lucrezia in the very moment she had realised that: This was her one chance to find true happiness. She had sacrificed so much. What was another sacrifice that somebody else would have to make? Another deception? Nothing.

Alfonso’s lips at her neck ripped her from her thoughts. “Will you spend your night in my rooms, my Lady?”

She pressed him closer, let a hand drift between his legs to show him that she was not averse to the idea per se, and whispered a lie into his ear.

“I hate to disappoint you, but it is my time of the month, my Lord.”

“Shame.” Alfonso pressed another row of kisses to her skin, up behind her ear. He had never been a bad lover by any means, had always cared for her pleasure as much as for his own; and Lucrezia had hardly ever refused him. But he was not Cesare. Nobody was Cesare. And after finally having felt her brother’s hands on her again, Lucrezia could not bear her husband touching her tonight.

She put some distance between them and smiled at him. “Go to sleep, my husband. You will need your strength. My brother has a difficult personality.”

 

***

 

 

Cesare arrived with the appropriate pomp and circumstances at the Castello Estense, black and golden in the morning light. Lucrezia spotted Micheletto in the shadows, always by his side, but she didn’t think anyone else took note of him. Her brother in his gleaming armour and the twenty guards with the Borgia crest on their chests accompanying him were a lot more interesting even for watchful eyes. They greeted each other respectfully, Alfonso, Cesare and her; and she could tell from the look in her husband’s eye that Cesare’s easy charm was having its desired effect. Cesare’s guards remained in the precinct in front of the great doors, sceptically surveyed by Ferrara’s guards; but Cesare had assured Lucrezia that they were handpicked and very capable of doing their job.

The great hall, where Alfonso and Cesare were supposed to sign the documents, was free from guards, apart from two men standing watch by the door; and the three of them sat down to go over the papers once again. Cesare ceremoniously presented the Duke of Ferrara with the “finalised version” as he called it, and Lucrezia watched her husband’s eyebrows fold in on themselves upon reading it…

In the next few seconds, everything happened quite fast. The two guards by the door let out small cries and tumbled to the floor behind Lucrezia, courtesy of Micheletto; and Cesare rose from the table like a panther, the tip of his sword at Alfonso’s throat.

“What…what is this?” Alfonso’s eyes were drifting wildly between Lucrezia on one side and her brother on the other, the document forgotten before him.

Cesare smiled with too many teeth.

“This is a document that proclaims your abdication from the throne of Ferrara, and makes my sister, Lucrezia d’Este, the new Duchess of Ferrara, solely responsible for all business of the state. It also says that you will choose exile in France, more precisely, Valence, which is under my protection; and you will never set foot in Italy again.”

“But…Lucrezia?” She saw the realisation of her deception dawn in his eyes, followed by anger; but Cesare’s sword was still at his throat, and Micheletto had stepped behind him, dagger ready in hand, so any movement he made could be his death.

“I believe you should sign this, my Lord,” Lucrezia said. “It is for the best. You will be given your life and your freedom in another country. You will have an allowance. Nobody will hurt you. My brother had to promise me that.”

“You deceived me?” Alfonso asked, an angry growl in his words. “Guards!” he shouted.

Cesare laughed. “Even if they could hear you, do you really think my men will let anyone near this room? They are trained professionals. And right about now, they are fighting their way into the palace, clearing the corridors.” He lifted Alfonso’s chin higher with his blade. “You have two options, my Lord: Sign, and live. Or don’t sign, and die.”

“What will you do without my signature? If I die, how will you get what you want?”

“We have men who can easily fake a signature,” Lucrezia gave back, softly. “What we are offering you we do completely out of goodwill. You would be advised to take it. It is your last chance.”

Alfonso shot her a contemptuous look, but he did take up the quill before him. “Ferrara will never accept this,” he said, but he signed, and Lucrezia immediately took the document from him as soon as he was done.

“And to think you would have born my sons, you snake. You are just as vicious as the rest of your family.”

“My sister made a case for keeping you alive. You could do with a little courtesy towards her, my Lord,” Cesare gave back; and Alfonso got no time to answer, because Micheletto had already taken the opportunity to knock him out with the hilt of his dagger.

“Servant’s clothes,” Cesare reminded him, putting away his sword. “And then get him out of here. My men should have swept this castle clean by now.”

Micheletto was nodding and moving before Cesare had spoken his final word, dragging Alfonso into the adjacent room.

Lucrezia’s heart was beating at breakneck speed, her hands shaking; but when Cesare pulled her into his arms, she found herself smiling and breathing relief.

“My sister, Duchess of Ferrara. How does it feel to have your own city?”

Lucrezia put her hands on his chest and shoved him away a little, so she could look him in the eye. “It’s not over, Cesare. I will have to tell the people. Some of them will resist. There will be rumours of a Borgia ploy, there will be rumours of deception. The D’Este have ruled this city for long; this change will not go over easy.”

“Whoever stands in your way will be met with the necessary amount of violence,” Cesare promised her, a firmness in his eyes and voice that gave her back the feeling of security she had felt in his tent. “This city will bloom under your reign. And, don’t forget: In the eyes of the people, you are a D’Este. They do not even have to get accustomed to a new ruler.”

Lucrezia pushed her fingers into Cesare’s hair and let her lips drift closer to his.

“But you know I’m not a D’Este, brother. I’m a Borgia.”

“They don’t need to know, sis,” Cesare retorted, his hands possessively around her waist. “Nobody needs to know.”

“Nobody, except you and me.”

A smile spread on her brother’s lips.

“Exactly.”

 

  

 

 

**\- June 1504  -**

 

Lucrezia awoke to the sound of birds, accompanied by the first rays of sunlight, and the presence of a warm body in her bed. A slow smile spread on her face when she remembered the previous night, remembered welcoming her brother back after his successful ventures in Venice. Another city added to his growing empire; and the ones he had conquered still stood behind him, building a unified, Borgia-allegiant front. She found herself smiling a lot, these days, even though some small voice in her head didn’t get tired of telling her that she did not deserve this kind of happiness after all the blood she’d shed, after everything she and her brother had done; but God was smiling on both of them, and Cesare had managed to carve out a place for her, for them, right in the middle of this new world he was building, against all obstacles.

“Up so early,” his sleep-heavy voice asked at her ear, and Lucrezia pushed back into Cesare’s arms, let him pull her in close against his warm, naked chest.

“When do you have to leave?” she asked, despite herself, because that was the only true crux in this arrangement: He always had to leave, and she never knew when he’d return. If he’d return.

“Not too soon,” he answered, and his face buried itself at the nape of her neck, his lips pressed into her hairline. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“Will you stop, one day?” she asked, and it came out quite serious. “Or will you never rest? Like Alexander? Always another city to conquer?”

Her brother turned her around in his arms, so she was looking straight at him. His hair was a mess, and the warmth in his eyes reminded her that she was the only person allowed to see him like this.

“I will stop. Three more destinations. Bologna. Naples. Milan. Give me five more years, and it will be done. And I will come here and stay with you.”  
“I could marry. It would be one city less for you to conquer. Make things easier,” Lucrezia said with a sigh; and she found, to her surprise, that she actually meant it. She was the Duchess of Ferrara, recognised and loved by her people, who had settled easier into her reign than even Cesare had wanted to believe. A husband could do nothing to her. Not any more.

“I would never, never ask that of you, sis,” Cesare said, firmly. “And it wouldn’t be wise, either. I would rather you rule a city than have you shackled to one. Or, worse, taken prisoner again, like in Naples.” His thumb stroked her temple. “I wouldn’t survive that, not again.”

Lucrezia pushed closer and let her forehead rest against Cesare’s, sudden tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. “I love you,” she said, simply. “There was a time when I feared you would tie me down. I was doing you wrong, Cesare. You gave me wings. You always have.”

“God, Lucrezia,” His hand covered the back of her head, pulling her closer, taking breath from her lips. “My love.”

They lay like that for a while, in silence, half-kissing, half-breathing each other’s air, Cesare’s sleep-tangled hair under Lucrezia’s fingers, his hard body against her; and if Heaven wasn’t this, she decided, she never wanted to go there.


End file.
